|
Pisa is a charming city in Tuscany. Best
known for the famous “LeaningTower,” Pisa offers the traveler
many other wonderful marvels as well.
Lying at the junction of two rivers in
central Italy, Pisa is a safe tourist destination with thriving
arts and culture. The Campo dei Miracoli (“Field of Miracles”)
hosts many important structures and is also the site of the
Duomo Cathedral and the Camposanto cemetery.
Pisa is most famous for its leaning
campanile, yet its other equally notable coups include its long
maritime legacy dating to 1000 BC, its prized university and its
status as the birthplace of the world’s greatest physicist and
astronomer, Galileo Galilei.
The Pisans also created one of the most
beautiful squares in the world in the Campo dei Miracoli (Field
of Miracles). Its key component is the famous Leaning Tower,
whose layers of heavy marble were constructed on a shifting
subsoil foundation that has been the bane of Pisan engineers for
more than 800 years.
It seems that the tremulous soil
underneath the Field of Miracles has exacted its price on the
other buildings too, most notably San Michele dei Scalzi.
Other attractions of interest in Pisa
include the Museo delle Sinopie, a museum containing a display
of sketches from the frescoed cycle that decorated the walls of
the Campo Santo cemetery and the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in
which exhibits of arabesque panels and Corinthian capitals
reveal the influences of Rome and Islam on Pisan architects.
The Museo Nazionale di San Matteo
displays a range of Florentine art from the 12th through to the
17th centuries. |
